Accountants slam quarterly tax returns

Accountants slam quarterly tax returns Accountants, including Harris & Co chartered accountants Northampton, the specialist small business accountants, say George Osborne’s announcement that tax returns will have to be filed quarterly will place a huge burden on the self-employed and small businesses. The self-employed struggle to do self-assessment once a year, citing penalty issues and disputes over holiday or sick leave. Anita Monteith, tax faculty manager at the ICAEW, said she is “outraged” at claims in the Autumn Statement that the Government is proposing to cut the cost of business administration by £400m through the digitisation of tax collection: “It is difficult to see how reporting more frequently can possibly reduce your costs… Does this mean that you"re going to be doing four reports for HMRC as well as 12 for the [DWP] for Universal Credit reporting? If you happened to be registered for VAT obviously the reports you do for VAT are different. If you"re a small business you"re probably going to be using one of the VAT schemes that you"re allowed to use to simplify your reporting. So four VAT ones, four income tax ones, 12 Universal Credit ones. Throw in a couple of reconciliations one presumes. Auto-enrolment reporting, too, if you are foolish enough to employ somebody.”Source: The Mail on Sunday (29/11/2015)